Loveliest of Trees
by Open Casket Ceremony
Summary: On a winter day, Ichigo stops to think and remember the prodigy who was known as Hitsugaya Toshiro. Oneshot, IchiHitsu, poem-based, character death.


Author's Note: This is a one-shot IchiHitsu fic. Its inspiration is from the poem Loveliest of Trees by A.E. Housman. Warning, character death.

I don't own Bleach and I don't own the poem, either.

Enjoy.

* * *

**Loveliest of trees, the cherry now  
Is hung with bloom along the bough,  
And stands about the woodland ride  
Wearing white for Eastertide.**

I guess I've just been so caught up with life that I haven't had the chance to appreciate the seasons.

But I've already missed that chance. I know I won't get the opportunity again.

It used to be winter, and before I knew it, the sun came back out, the cold disappeared, and the cherry trees were in full bloom again. Spring had taken its place. Some say that the sakura tree is most beautiful during haru, but I beg to differ. It can't even measure up to what it looks like during the winter, fuyu.

I remember that it all started a really long time ago. All my shinigami business, and then all that time with the Vizard, and then it was summer, when June's rain brought back my memories, and it was life or death. Natsu is a nostalgic time of the year for me. I guess I could never depart from death for too long, if I wasn't off in shinigami duty, then I found myself missing the graveyard. Those summer days went by fast.

I still believe in those rolling days, though. I miss them.

After summer came autumn. I know that I wanted to start fresh, go back to school and concentrate, study, things like that.

I got stronger, too, thanks to the Vizard. Aki was still barely inching by, I knew, because the summer sun hadn't even begun to cool down quite yet.

But that wasn't enough. I wanted to keep in touch with Soul Society. I got what I wanted when the Arrancar came.

Shortly after I encountered them for the first time, a unit from Soul Society was sent to Karakura to assist me and protect the town against such dangers.

Renji. Rukia. Rangiku. Ikkaku. Yumichika.

And another face that I had never seen before.

He was the captain of the tenth division, I was told. He was a prodigy, a genius. A tensai of such high caliber that Soul Society had never encountered up until his enlistment into the Gotei 13. His zanpaku-to, Hyorinmaru, governed the sky and set all things in its path to ice. Just by looking at him, I had the feeling that winter couldn't be that far away after all. His job was to lead and instruct the unit sent into our world. But he was so young, I had to be at least three heads taller than him.

At first, I didn't believe that he was a taichou, let alone the wielder of the very zanpaku-to that reigned over all other ice types in Soul Society. Next to Hyorinmaru, Rukia's Sode no Shirayuki looked like nothing more than a melting ice cube.

His name was Hitsugaya Toshiro.

Big name for such a little kid.

But I never asked to fall in love with him, either.

Words cannot express how much I regretted those autumn days. I still do.

I was a coward back then, I didn't have the guts to tell him to his face that I loved him, so he went on with life without having a single notion to it at all. I know I should have. I didn't ell anyone else, either, because I was afraid of being humiliated, and I was afraid of offending Toshiro

I enjoyed the time he spent in the real world while I could. It wasn't meant to last.

I remember him clearly. Hair like snow and eyes like ice.

He just didn't belong in our world, and he didn't seem to belong in the warm weather of fall, either. I didn't know what to do.

And then they came again, the Arrancar.

That night sucked, I swear.

I was too caught up in my own fight, too caught up with trying to beat the shit out of my enemy for hurting Rukia. I was too blind with my own anger to realize that he was in danger. Too busy to see the ice crumbling from his bankai fall back to the earth. Too stupid to see his blood raining down along with it.

In the end, he was alright, because Inoue healed him. I don't know what I'd do if she hadn't.

There was a brief moment of peace after that.

But I couldn't enjoy it. I was suffering with too much guilt.

And before I knew it, the Arrancar were back for a third round.

I was deterred by the same, bone-jawed, blue-haired bastard. I knew Toshiro was in trouble again, some intuition of mine was screaming at me to get to where the others were and go save him.

I never did.

By the time I had gotten away, Toshiro had managed to pick himself back up and keep right on fighting, easily dispatching the enemy that had sought to kill him in the name of Aizen. He really was a prodigy.

This time, though, Inoue wasn't there to help.

They had taken her away, the sotaichou told us. The Arrancar had kidnapped her, and that Toshiro and his group had to return to Soul Society.

I was crushed. I had no one to turn to.

Rukia had left, Inoue was gone.

And Toshiro had left as well, without looking back, not even a single glance.

It was killing me inside that I hadn't had the guts to tell him I loved him. I had missed my chance, and I knew my next opportunity might not even come again.

Then I made one of most stupidest decisions ever.

I left to go to Hueco Mundo.

I was determined to save Inoue. I knew I had to, otherwise Aizen and his cronies could hurt her, or worse. In the end, though, it didn't even matter. I failed.

**Now of my threescore years and ten,  
Twenty will not come again,  
And take from seventy springs a score,  
It only leaves me fifty more.**

I let everyone down.

I couldn't save Inoue.

I wasn't able help Rukia, Renji, Chad, or Ishida.

I couldn't get back to the real world to see Toshiro again when he was finally sent back.

Autumn left.

Winter had arrived.

But the worst thing of all was the fact that I wasn't there for Toshiro when he needed me, when he needed help.

I was later told he was fighting an enemy much stronger than himself, all alone. No one was there to help him, not even Rangiku-san, because she had her own opponent to deal with.

No one saw his bankai collapse, no one saw how much he was suffering, and yet, he could still hold his head high, just like the tensai title that everyone expected him to live up to.

And no one was there to see the final blow from his enemy.

The attack that would kill him.

When I finally freed myself from Hueco Mundo, I was already too late.

I was greeted by the feeling of overflowing reiatsu, the sounds of the dying, the heat of everyone's individual battles.

And I would never forget the sight of Toshiro's body plummeting downwards from the sky, his bankai reduced to little more than shards of ice shattering into bits, his haori stained crimson with blood.

I screamed out his name, but I don't know if anyone heard me.

I ran to him, I caught him in my arms, I held on to him, and I swore to myself that I wouldn't let go. I was desperate, I was screaming for someone from the fourth division to please help us, I was tearing apart my own shihakusho to use to try and stop the bleeding.

All this while the enemy laughed.

Toshiro was dying, and there was nothing I could do, or could have done, to save him.

So I decided to finally be brave, gather my courage, and tell him.

They were the most painful three words that I ever had to say in my entire life.

"I love you."

He never heard me say it, though. He never saw the medics that had come too late. He never heard me scream his name over and over and over again, screaming my throat raw. He never saw my tears, he never felt my arms around his body, holding on to him as if I were afraid that he would slip away.

He was already dead.

**And since to look at things in bloom  
Fifty springs are little room,  
About the woodlands I will go  
To see the cherry hung with snow.**

I don't remember how long ago that was.

It's winter again.

And one of these days, I'll go outside. I'll stand in the cold as long as it takes for me to realize that I missed the best thing that ever happened to me, and that I can't reverse time.

I'll think, I'll dream, and I'll remember.

And then, I'll walk to the place where he had died in my arms. Where I had held him, where I had told him I loved him, where I will never see him again.

I'll look up at the trees, stare into their lifeless branches.

And then I'll try to appreciate them.

The cherry trees in all their snow-covered beauty.


End file.
